Flashlamps allow the removal of large areas of hair, veins or capillaries on almost any body area, such as on the face, arms, legs, breasts, hands, stomach and the like. Flashlamp treatment provides a low discomfort level to the patient, and hair removal may last for Weeks on a body area. However, the current flashlamp methods used for hair removal sometimes produce unwanted side effects such as burning the skin, changes in skin pigmentation, and permanent scarring.
Pulsed flashlamps emit filtered visible light having wavelengths in the range of 550 nm and above, but have not been effective in providing permanent hair removal.
Current cutaneous flashlamps work by delivering energy in the form of visible light which is absorbed by the cutaneous target, heating the target and thereby causing its destruction. Different skin structures have different colors, different surface to volume configurations, and other factors which cause differential rates of heat loss. All of the hair removal flashlamps work by application of the principal of selective photothermoloysis, i.e. selective destruction due to heat caused by absorption of light. Visible light, which has a varied wavelength, is absorbed by a target which has a complementary specific color for those wavelengths. This flashlamp target is called a chromophore. The usual chromophore for hair removal fiashlamps is melanin, found in high concentration in brown and black hair, and is responsible for the color of hair.
The clinical problem is that melanin is also found in the epidermis, and is responsible for native skin color and tan. Flashlamp energy is therefore also absorbed into the epidermis. The problem of hair removal by flashlamps therefore is to deliver flashlamp energy that heats the hair to a sufficient degree to cause permanent damage and hair loss, yet spare the skin of any damage. Present flashlamp methods are unable to accomplish this.
The use of medical flashlamps to produce permanent hair removal in patients with hair of all colors, and skin of all colors, has, up to this time, been impossible to achieve with current technology. While promising, the currently-used flashlamp methods have all had difficulty in treating patients with dark skin. In addition, even in Caucasian patients, the currently-used flashlamp methods have burned many patients, leading to prolonged changes in skin color and even, in some cases, to permanent scarring. Hair loss, although usually prolonged, has not been permanent for the majority of patients.
Nevertheless, the use of visible light in the range of 550 nm to 900 nm still appears to be an effective way to achieve long-term hair removal. To achieve predictable permanency we need to achieve higher temperatures in the hair without heating the epidermis to the point where it is burned. Current techniques are inadequate to accomplish this.
There remains a need for an improved flashlamp method which will supply a series of short flashlamp energy pulses with short time delays between pulses to heat that hair follicle sufficiently to cause permanent damage to that hair follicle, and yet spare the skin from burning, thus providing a safe and permanent method of hair removal.
A new flashlamp method has been developed that has the following major advantages: 1) increased efficacy, causing greater hair loss and true permanent hair removal; 2) increased safety, with burning of the skin eliminated, so that treatment has no side effects; and 3) it allows the use of flashlamp hair removal for patients with dark skin, thereby greatly increasing the range of people who can be treated with this technology.